1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tactile and movement sensation generators, more particularly to sound-controlled tactile and movement sensation generators for home chairs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A traditional movie involves the use of two viewer senses: the sight and the sound. For more than fifty years this was the way of transmitting sensations to viewers. However, recently, new movie technologies have allowed the use of other senses in order to provide an even more realistic experience for the viewers. The tactile and equilibrium senses were added to sight and hearing in order to allow viewers to even "feel" action during a movie.
In many places where the affluence of clients permits, expensive technologies have been implemented, especially in amusements parks. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,889 to Purcell discloses a modular assembly of theater seats moved by a hydraulic cylinder while U.S. Pat. No. 3,865,430 to Tanus presents a theater chair movable by remote control. However, the hydraulic motors used for moving these chairs in amusement parks have a built-in moving system and are consequently large and expensive. They may only be employed in a large scale application, such as in public theaters. These technologies may not be employed for the large majority of movie screens, which are the home theaters.
Nevertheless, in recent years, new devices for providing tactile sensations to movie viewers emerged in the field of home use. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,208 to Yamada et al. disclosed an audio-band electromechanical vibration converter that provides small amplitude vibrations according to a soundtrack. Like this patent, most devices in the field usually comprise a magnetic vibration generator that reproduces the low frequency vibrations of movie soundtrack on contact with the viewers skin. Other devices transmit vibrations to the body of the viewer's chair. However, only very small amplitude vibrations may thus be transmitted to the viewers using those devices and this kind of vibrations do not always reflects the action occurring in the movie. Moreover, such small amplitude vibrations are attenuated by the chair cushion in the case of devices that transmit vibrations to the viewer through the chair, so the viewer may barely feel those tactile sensations. Current devices do not provide enough amplitude of the movements for creating real movement sensations for movie viewers. Since they only perform very simple signal processing such as filtering, they do not provide controlled movements.